Our men were well armed, but refrained from showing
any signs of hostility, and rowed nearer in order to converse with the
natives; and I now found that more than one of the crew could
imperfectly speak dialects of the language peculiar to the South Sea
Islanders. When within forty yards of the shore, we ceased rowing, and
the first mate stood up to address the multitude; but instead of
answering us, they replied with a shower of stones, some of which cut
the men severely. Instantly our muskets were levelled, and a volley was
about to be fired, when the captain hailed us in a loud voice from the
schooner, which lay not more than five or six hundred yards off the
shore.
"Don't fire!" he shouted angrily. "Pull off to the point ahead of
you."
The men looked surprised at this order, and uttered deep curses as they
prepared to obey, for their wrath was roused and they burned for
revenge. Three or four of them hesitated, and seemed disposed to
mutiny.
"Don't distress yourselves, lads," said the mate, while a bitter smile
curled his lip. "Obey orders. The captain's not the man to take an
insult tamely. If Long Tom does not speak presently I'll give myself to
the sharks."
The men smiled significantly as they pulled from the shore, which was
now crowded with a dense mass of savages, amounting probably to five or
six hundred. We had not rowed off above a couple of hundred yards when
a loud roar thundered over the sea, and the big brass gun sent a
withering shower of grape point-blank into the midst of the living
mass, through which a wide lane was cut, while a yell, the like of
which I could not have imagined, burst from the miserable survivors as
they fled to the woods.
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